With the July 31st trade deadline just a day away, the Indians find themselves in an interesting position, one they likely did not expect to be in when the season began. It’s no secret that the strength of the Indians roster is the starting rotation. The fearsome foursome of Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, Trevor Bauer, and Danny Salazar is one of the most talented rotations in all of baseball, and luckily for the Tribe, they are all under team control for the foreseeable future. Recently, rumors surfaced that the Indians and Toronto Blue Jays came very close to coming to terms on a deal that would send Carlos Carrasco north of the border. That deal ultimately fell apart at the end for unknown reasons, but it begs the question, should the Indians consider trading away one of their prized young starting pitchers. There are two possible answers to this question, yes and no, there are compelling reasons in support of and against each view.
“Yes, make the trade!”
One of the best arguments in support of trading a starting pitcher is to add more offense to a team so desperately in need of another hitter. It’s no secret right now that the Indians’ offense is the biggest reason why they sit in last place in the division. The pitching staff has been excellent all season, the bullpen has been solid after a shaky first few weeks, and the defense has improved tremendously with the additions of Francisco Lindor and Giovanny Urshela. But the most unlikely cause of Indians’ fans headaches has been the offense, particularly when runners are on base. Granted hitting with runners in scoring position is not a skill by any means, and being “clutch” likely has more to do with a batters’ mindset than his abilities, flipping a starting pitcher for a top tier hitter could be remedy for the Indians’ offensive ailments.
The Indians after all have four very good starting pitchers, each of them would be a #1 or #2 starter on the vast majority of major league ball clubs. Having just 3 extremely talented starting pitchers would probably be okay too, I mean, it did work pretty well for the Atlanta Braves. Now, do the Indians have 3 future hall of famers in their starting rotation? No, the odds of one having a hall of fame career are slim enough as it is, let alone three. But the point remains the same, the Indians have a surplus of very good pitchers, pitchers other teams would kill to acquire, or at the very least exchange a very good hitter for, and the Indians would not suffer any demonstrable decrease in staff performance.
The ability to acquire a great hitter, as I suggested the Indians would likely be able to do, is made possible in large part because all of the Indians’ young starting pitchers are under team control for a substantial length of time, and they are cheap. Kluber, who is very unlikely to be traded anytime soon, but for the sake of this argument is included anyway, is under contract till 2019, with options for 2020 and 2021. He won’t make more than $14 million in any season during the life of this contract, a criminally low/very team-friendly contract, especially for a former Cy Young winner. Carrasco also just signed an extension, his keeps him under contract until 2018, with two option years taking him to 2020. If a team were to acquire him before the deadline they would have to pay him roughly $38 million from now to 2020, a total about 50% higher than the Yankees will pay the long-since effective CC Sabathia this season alone. Bauer is under team control for the next 4 seasons, and doesn’t become arbitration eligible until 2017. Salazar is under team control till 2018, becoming arbitration eligible this winter.
The contract status of each of these players is extremely important because it give the Indians a great deal of leverage if they should choose to negotiate a deal with another team. Every season a team nears the trade deadline in playoff contention or on the cusp of contention and has to make the decision whether to make a big trade in the hopes that it will push them over the top (see Jon Lester and Jeff Samardzija to the Oakland A’s last season). More often than not the players available during these times are those which are unlikely to be re-signed at the end of the season by their current team and are set to receive a big contract once they hit free agency. These players are, in the truest sense of the word, “rentals.” Any team would prefer not to have to give up their best prospects for a player they may not have come opening day the following season, which is where the Indians hold a substantial bargaining chip. Most teams are much more willing to part with quality players or prospects if the return player(s) provide considerable contributions for years to come.
“You can never have enough pitching!”
This old adage is the rallying cry for fans that are not fond of the idea of trading away the Indians young pitchers. There is a lot of truth to this point, pitching, particularly young, proven pitching, is very hard to come by. Something all Indians fans can relate to is the fact that the great Tribe squads of the 90’s always lacked elite pitching. That’s not to say they didn’t have some very, very good pitchers, because they most certainly did, but they didn’t have that big time pitcher you could put on the mound in a big game and know he was going to shut the opposing team down. The Indians have four players that legitimately can take the mound on any given day and pitch a complete game shutout, and no one would be surprised, why get rid of that?
Not only is having four great starters a major benefit because they can win any game nearly single-handedly, having four great starters provides plenty of insurance should one of them fall victim to injuries. UCL injuries seem as common as a cold these days and each season there is a large host of pitchers shut down for 12+ months after Tommy John. The Indians are very familiar with what it’s like to deal with injuries to a rotation. Going into this season the Indians had what some determined to be too many starters, yet it took Cody Anderson‘s rise from AA to Cleveland to finally provide stability to the fifth spot in the rotation that was plagued with ineffectiveness and ailments.
Furthermore, this Indians team is very talented. There are plenty of players in the lineup that are among the best hitters at their position like Jason Kipnis, Michael Brantley, Yan Gomes, and Carlos Santana. The latter two have struggled mightily this season, which has hampered the team’s success, but they have proven as recently as last season that they are two of the best hitters at their position and two of the better hitters in the American League. With the aforementioned fickle nature of such stats as “avg. w/RISP”, this entire season may just be a fluke and there is simply no way the Indians can perform as poorly as they have with the amount of great talent that they have.
Additionally, the Indians’ core is still relatively young and getting better. With the additions of talented infielders Lindor and Urshela, the Indians continue to add great young talent to the major league roster that figures only to get better for the next few years. It may not be worth trading away any of the Indians’ pitchers if the offense figures to improve through the development of young talent anyway. Not to mention the fact that the Indians’ minor league system is filled with guys like Bradley Zimmer, Clint Frazier, Tyler Naquin, Nellie Rodriguez, and Bobby Bradley, all of which have the potential to be very good, and in some cases great, major league hitters. By the time these players make it to the big leagues, the (new) Big Four should still be under team control and the Indians could continue to be competitive late into the decade without having to sacrifice a valuable pitcher.
Despite what some fans’ views of Mark Shapiro and Chris Antonetti, they have no doubt considered all of these options. Quite honestly I don’t know where I fall in this whole debate, as these have been the arguments I’ve posed to myself as I’ve debated this issue silently in my head during the work day when I am supposed to be doing work that I’m actually getting paid for. Recently I’ve begun to lean towards trading one of the rotation arms, that may have a lot to do with the Indians’ recent offensive futility. It also has a lot to do with the fact that relying on young players is a very uncertain process. Baseball is a tough game and even the best prospects aren’t the best pros, with the Indians so close to being a legitimate contender (a fact that I refuse to believe is not true), maybe adding a little more fire power at the plate could go a long way. Either way, I’ll let you decide for yourself.
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